10 things we didn't know last week
Snippets from the week's news, sliced and diced for your convenience.
1. Just 20 words make up a third of teenagers' everyday speech.
2. Children whose parents have an OBE can marry at St Paul's cathedral.
3. Murders of prostitutes have the lowest clear-up rates of all killings.
4. The world's tallest man has arms that are 1.06m long.
5. The top six high street banks in the UK made an estimated £4.5bn from penalty charges in 2005 .
6. About 40% of the mango trees planted to offset the carbon emissions from Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head album have died - which releases carbon into the atmosphere.
7. About 85% of Sandhurst's cadets are university graduates.
8. Half a million passengers will pass through Heathrow alone this weekend as the Christmas getaway begins.
9. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.
10. Half of prison inmates do not have the reading skills expected of an 11 year old child.
[Sources: 3. Guardian, 13 December; 6. Observer, 10 December; 8. Times, 14 December]
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